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At 9:10 AM for 9:15 AM (EST) Sunday School
Phone number: 609-663-4533
CALL IN FOR VIRTUAL INTERCESSORY PRAYER
At 9:10 AM for 9:15 AM (EST) Saturdays
Phone number: 609-663-4533
Second Baptist Church (West End) is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting at 12:30 (EDT):
Sunday Afternoon Worship @SBC
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Meeting ID: 831 9042 2196
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Access to Sunday Afternoon Worship @SBC remains via the telephone number 617-769-8209 at 12:40 p.m. (EDT).
Rev. Dr. James Henry Harris is pastor.
To sign up for the COVID-19 vaccine, please go to: vaccinatevirginia.gov or call 1-877-829-4682.
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OUR MOTTO
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Proverbs 29:18
OUR MISSION
Sowing seeds of love and care in the spirit of Jesus Christ through preaching, teaching, and outreach.
QUICK LINKS
Our pastor, Rev. Dr. James Henry Harris, does evening vespers nightly for your spiritual growth. Call the church at (804) 353-7682 if you are interested in our robo call. Please leave your name, phone number and the reason for your call so we can stay in touch with you.
Evening Vespers
The book "N" by Pastor J.H. Harris is now available to buy
"N: My Encounter with Racism and the Forbidden Word in an American Classic"
By James Henry Harris
Black Theologian and Scholar James Henry Harris Confronts the Use of Notorious Racial Slur in Mark Twain Classic — and Its Ugly History in American Life
James Henry Harris, pastor of Second Baptist Church (on the West End of Richmond, Virginia), was bombarded with the ugliest racial epithet more than 200 times while taking a graduate course on an American classic. That’s how often the forbidden word is used in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Harris, reading the novel for the first time at age 53, and the only Black person in the class, recounts the trauma of that experience in his powerful memoir, N: My Encounter with Racism and the Forbidden Word in An American Classic (Fortress Press, October 26, 2021).
“I was teetering on the brink of falling apart,” Harris says of encountering Twain's frequent use of the epithet week after week, in a classroom setting where the white instructor and white students felt no compunction about reading the word aloud and using it in discussions of the text. “My plight as a Black man in class was a metaphor, a symbol of the past, present, and postmodern condition of American society,” he writes.
The damage of racist slurs is unrelenting. A recent example is how the epithet was wielded against Black police officers protecting the members of Congress from the Trump-supporting mob that attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Historically the word was (and still is) used by white Americans to degrade and destroy the Black mind and body. “It was not only a denial of respect but an intentional and systemic use of a derogatory term to infuse Black consciousness with the notion of ‘nothingness’; an ontological denial of being,” Harris says. “But it did not work because Blacks always had common sense enough to know and believe that they could not and would not be defined by their oppressor. This systematic oppression and denial of Black life from the Middle Passage to the recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others reflects centuries of white supremacist ideology and practice throughout government, business, politics, education, and white church life.”
AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE AT Fortress Press. CLICK HERE
Paperback, $18.99
ISBN: 9781506479163
PUB DATE: October 26, 2021
NO DISCUSSIONS ON NOV. 21
THROUGH DEC. 5, 2021!!
WE ARE TAKING A BREAK!
DISCUSSIONS RESUME
SUNDAY, DEC. 12, 2021!!
JOIN US FOR THE
WEEKLY
ZOOM DISCUSSIONS
ABOUT BLACK SUFFERING!
EVERY SUNDAY
AT 7:30 P.M. (EDT)
To join in the live discussion on Zoom, CLICK HERE.
The weekly Sunday Zoom discussions of our pastor’s book, “Black Suffering: Silent Pain, Hidden Hope,” by James Henry Harris, are taking off!
The book explores many timely atrocities, such as the Memorial Day 2020 police killing of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, and the plight of Black people amid the COVID-19 worldwide pandemic. Nat Turner, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and even Job of the Bible are part of his call to consciousness.
Drawing on decades of personal experience as a pastor, theologian, and educator, Harris gives voice to suffering's practical impact on church leaders as they seek to forge a path forward to address this huge and troubling issue. The book “Black Suffering” identifies Black suffering, shines a light on the insidious normalization of the phenomenon, and begins a larger conversation about correcting the historical weight of suffering carried by Black people.
The book combines elements of memoir, philosophy, historical analysis, literary criticism, sermonic discourse, and even creative nonfiction to present a "remix" of the suffering experienced daily by Black people.
JOIN US!
See You There!
Where to buy “Black Suffering”
“Black Suffering: Silent Pain, Hidden Hope” by James Henry Harris is available on Amazon.com, BarenesandNoble.com, Walmart.com, Target.com, Christianbook.com, Cokesbury.com and fortresspress.com.
